We headed out across the lake and not many of the early boats seem to go the direction we did.  We arrived at the first area and I pitched my 1/2oz Black & Blue Jig into he cane grass and as I was letting the trolling motor down, one already had the jig and fish # 1 was in the boat, my 3rd pitch yielded fish #2 as well.  My partner soon caught a nice fish as well.  I ended up culling before 8am on the first patch of reeds and cane.  We hit two more reed patches and one produced a cull for me and the next produced to nice fish for my partner.  I also hit some bog areas, but they did not produce.  One thing to point, myself and other club members did something a little different with our jigs.  We used real pork chunks all week, I know you are probably thinking, didn’t people stop using pork in the 80’s…..   We used it for two reasons, one the fish seem to like it and the 2nd is that once you put in on, you never needed to fix or replace the trailer, which means more flips and more time with your jig on the water, which when fishing rice, means more fish!!!!   At Reeds in Walker, I found a sweet pork chunk that looks like a super chunk and the fish loved it.  It was an Uncle Josh Phantom Craw (Black with Blue Claws).  Every fish that I weigh the first day came on a Tru-Tungsten jig with tipped with a pork chunk and several of my other club members caught their fish on the same or similar combos.
    

I then made a stop by a dock that I had located that had several fish on it a few days ago.  Only one problem, my trolling motor had almost no juice at 10am……  But i did end up getting a 3.5lb plus fish of that dock, so my bag was starting to take shape.  It turns out one of my batteries went south almost instantly.  Fortunately my All Charge unit saved the rest of my day, as when I would run from spot to spot it would add a little juice the one battery I had, so I managed to limp around the rest of the day.  We were able to fish, just not as efficiently as if we had full power.  We spent the rest of the day around the rice in the north end of Steamboat Bay.  I was catching lots of fish on cane toads and jigs, but I was not finding big enough fish to help me.  Finally I plucked a nice fish from the rice on the jig that went close to 4lbs.  I knew at that point I had a solid bag, I knew it would not be the biggest bag, but would keep me in the mix for making a Top 12 spot.  We fished hard for a couple more hours, but neither of us could any more big bites that would help our bags.

The wind had picked up, but we made the long run back with 3 minutes to spare.
My total weight was 5 fish for 16.26lbs, my big fish was around 3.8lbs.  I think that put me in 21st or 22nd after day 1.  My partner weighed around 12lbs.  The leaded was Nick Gross from Granite City with 21.04lbs, so I was aways back from him, but I was only 1.14lbs out of 12th and that is where I wanted to be, in the Top 12, because the Top 12 advance to 2008 Divisionals.  It was a real whackfest the first day, it seemed everyone had a limit that wen 13-15lbs.  Well, after the leaderboard wall tallied it was time to get home and start troubleshooting battery problems and get ready for day two.

I left my house in Lakeville before 5am on Saturday morning, picked up my dad and we launched on Boy Bay. It was a windy first day, but we went right to the spot where I had caught 19lbs last year in a club tournament and my fellow club member Dave Ham was there and so were the bass.  We spent the rest of the day checking other areas and looking for new stuff in Boy Bay.  The best baits were texas rigged plastics, cane toads, & Stanley Ribbits.

Day two I spent in Steamboat area, found some new stuff as well as checked some old stuff.  Most of my bites came around reeds that day.  Stick’Em Lures Salty Sinkers & Tru-Tungsten Jigs were the ticket, and 1/2oz Black & Blue was the best by far.  In the evening I jumped in Ryan Brant’s boat with Josh, and the three of us went looking for Frog fish and we found them.  We probably had 20-30 blowups in 2hrs, we tried not to hook to many of them, being the tourney was a few days away.  I did the best on a white Optimum Furbit frog.

Here is a largemouth that fell for the Salty Sinker
Day 3, Josh Douglas & I launched near Brevik to add to the Boy bay water I had found, we started the morning by running to Horseshoe bay, that is where the tournament would launch from.  We looked for areas to fish on the way back to Headquarters.  I did catch a really nice smallie on the south shore, but only found one. 

Here is a my nice random smallie from Practice
 We also found a couple nice stretches of rice in Headquarters bay where we had several bites on jigs and a SWL BuzzR Bait Midnight Snack.  I also checked my best area in Boy and they were still there.

Day 4, was back to Steamboat.  Josh & I ran up the Steamboat river to Steamboat lake, we caught a few fish up there, but both agreed it was not worth the run.  We then found some Rice points in the upper end of steamboat that had good numbers and quality.  Check a few more things, found a nice marina where we got a big bite and kind of called it a day.  Tru-Tungsten jigs did the best again today.

Overall, I felt good about my practice, I had fish going on both ends of the lake, I could fish areas no matter the wind and had a good mix of types of spots.  I was going to wait until after the pairings meeting to finalize my tournament game plan.

We then ran some other areas, had some boils but no hook-ups.  We ended the day on a eel grass line where we did real well on soft plastics, overall, a productive day. Added some areas and eliminated some water.

Its the end of the week, I am packing for Leech tonight and leaving very early tomorrow morning, probably no blog entries between now and Sept 10th.  I will be fishing the MNBF TOC on Leech and the 4th Weekend Series tournament on Pools 4 & 5, so two tournaments and 9 straight days of fishing!!!!

Tight Lines,

I started out with a bone colored Yellow Magic Popper (found at Basspro.com) and Josh was tossing a Parch colored Sammy.  We both were catching fish and some keepers.  I threw back 5 keepers and Josh threw back 2 or 3 before we even put one in the well.  Torturous decisions that no cull tournaments present.  I finally switched to a bone colored Barely Legal Vixen and that put a nice largemouth in the boat, kind of a bonus fish here.  Josh ended up boating two nice smallies on his Sammy.  I also added a quality smallie on a mojo’d Fork Craw and then one more nice smallie on the Vixen before we left that spot.

We then started working our way up Pepin further north, I switched to a 3/8oz Fall Craw Tru-Tungsten jig, as we were targeting isolated wood and structure.  I caught two keepers pretty quick, one was a nice largemouth and he went in the well, I decided to throw the other back.  We then moved up a little farther and I caught a 16″ smallie.  I made the decision to throw her back as well, as I really wanted a 3lb plus fish because I wanted to make a run for first place in the club.

We fished up to Colvill park, came back to our starting point, fished it for awhile, we missed a few and caught some shorts.  With a bout 90 minutes left we ran all the way back to Wabasha to fish some backwater.  We did not have much time back there as it was rougher on the way back down the lake.  We each missed a few fish or they missed us on Frogs, we each caught a norther and then Josh connected on a 3.8lb toad on his frog.  We high tailed it back to Ike’s and Josh caught his 4th keeper on a small finesse jewel jig right at the mouth of Ikes to give him 4 and I told him you beat me on the last cast.

We weighed in, most guys struggled, no limits, although myself, Josh & John A. all had 4 and we all threw back keepers.  But in the end my dad caught only two fish and Dave H. caught only 1 and I passed them both for the year, which makes me AOY Champ back to back years.  It was also the last day of Match fishing and I beat out Ryan for the Championship.  I weighed 4 fish for 10.3lbs, Josh weighed 4 for 10.5…..

Tomorrow, I am captaining some Jr. anglers on Bald Eagle Lake and Sunday I am headed back to the river for some more practice

My first cast with a junebug swim jig got me a 14.5″ fish that I threw back because it was a ‘no cull’ tournament.  I then started throwing a bone colored Yellow Magic popper (I get mine from Basspro.com), caught some short fish then caught a 3.3lb largemouth.  I continued throwing that popper for the next hour and caught 10+ fish, none of which I actually put in the well.  I then switched to 1/2 oz Fall Craw Tru-Tungsten jig with Black Neon chunk and boated a nice keeper.  Rick then also boated a nice fish on a jig.  I then switched up and started flipping a Green Pumpkin Chigger Craw right up into the grass & brush on the undercut banks.  My flippin’ setup consisted of 50lb braid, 3/4oz Tru-Tungsten flippin’ weight and a 3/0 BMF hook tied up with a snell knot.  I caught several fish with this technique, two keepers, but both of them went back in the water.

I then went back to the jig and boated another nice largemouth for the well.  At the same time Ricky started building a nice limit on a Green Pumpkin Fork Craw on a mojo rig, he even threw back a 15″+ smallie and then caught another nice largemouth before I got my limit.  Finally at 1:30pm, I threw my Fork Craw on a mojo rig up next to a weed clump and boated a 2.8lb smallie.  That fish rounded out a nice limit of 14.0lbs, which I felt very good about in a no cull tournament.  Until weigh-in, when I ended up 4th out of 13 guys.  Several guys had 4lbs+ fish, I guess never got that big bite I needed.  Well it was time to dry off, retie my rods and get ready for Sunday on Pool 5.  I made up a bunch of ground on the guy in first, but the guy in 2nd beat me and now he is the new leader to chase.  I came in about 9lbs out of first, now I sit about 4lbs back, still in 3rd.

I got back to the pads and I started tossing a floating frog, about 15 minutes later I had a 4.5lb bass in the boat, shortly after that Rick had one just as big on a white cane toad and then a little later I had a big one miss my swim jig.  I was pretty excited with the quality, but it was not fast and furious by any means.  We spent a few hours trying to find similar water and I only caught one small keeper in the other areas.

We checked a few other areas later, I caught several fish Flipping plastics on a snell rig, with a 3/4oz Tru-Tungsten flippin’ weightand a 3/0 BMF hook.  Actual plastic did not seem to matter, caught them on Yum Vibra King Tubes, Gambler Ugly Otters, and few other things.  I did catch one more decent fish out of some duck weed closer to the main channel, then we had to go.

Overall, did not find anything but I have a lot of confidence in two areas.  I am torn, because one area is really good and had quality fish, the other has big fish but numbers are few.  Because its a ‘no cull’ tourney, I think we will run to the big fish first, give them 30-45 minutes, if its not happening we will come back to the other spot & try to fill the wells. 

On Sunday, we fish Pool 4, I have not been there since July 21, about a month, so I hope my fish on the top of Pepin are still there and the wind does not blow too hard, otherwise I have some back up slop on the WI side of Wabasha.  I am excited about this weekend.   Also, welcome email subscriber # 43!!